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General Electric A735 Digital Camera Teardown

Front
Front

This camera has now been retired after many years of heavy use. Exposure to a 3-year old has caused severe damage to the lens mechanism, which no longer functions correctly.

Rear Panel
Rear Panel

Pretty much standard interface for a digital camera, with a nice large LCD for it’s time.

Front Cover Removed
Front Cover Removed

With the front cover removed, the lens assembly & battery compartment is exposed.

Rear Cover Removed
Rear Cover Removed

Removing the rear cover exposes the LCD module & the main PCB, the interface tactile switches are on the right under a protective layer of Kapton tape.

Main Chipset
Main Chipset

Flipping the LCD out of it’s mounting bracket reveals the main camera chipset. The CPU is a NovaTek NT96432BG, no doubt a SoC of some kind, but I couldn’t find any information. Firmware & inbuilt storage is on a Hynix HY27US08561A 256MBit NAND Flash, with a Hynix HY5DU561622FTP-D43 256Mbit DRAM for system memory.
I couldn’t find any info on the other two chips on this side of the board, but one is probably a motor driver for the lens, while the other must be the front end for the CCD sensor input to the SoC.

Main PCB Reverse
Main PCB Reverse

The other side of the PCB handles the SD card slot & power management. All the required DC rails are provided for by a RT9917 7-Channel DC-DC converter from RichTek, an IC designed specifically for digital camera applications.
Top left above the SD card slot is the trigger circuitry for the Xenon flash tube & the RTC backup battery.

Main PCB Removed
Main PCB Removed

Once the main PCB is out of the frame, the back of the lens module with the CCD is accessible. Just to the left is the high-voltage photoflash capacitor, 110µF 330v. These can give quite the kick when charged! Luckily this camera has been off long enough for the charge to bleed off.

Sensor
Sensor

Finally, here’s the 7-Megapixel CCD sensor removed from the lens assembly, with it’s built in IR cut filter over the top. I couldn’t find any make or model numbers on this part, as the Aluminium mounting bracket behind is bonded to the back of the sensor with epoxy, blocking access to any part information.

Die images of the chipset to come once I get round to decapping them!

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AutoFace HID Ballast & Bulb

Ballast
Ballast

I bought one of these cheap HID kits from eBay to build a high-brightness work light that I could run from my central 12v supply.

At £14.99 I certainly wasn’t expecting anything more than the usual cheap Chinese construction. And that’s definitely what I got 😀

Potted PCB
Potted PCB

The casing is screwed together with the cheapest of screws, with heads that are deformed enough to present a problem with removal.

As can be seen here, the inside of the unit is potted in rubber compound, mostly to provide moisture resistance, as these are for automotive use.
The ballast generates a 23kV pulse to strike the arc in the bulb, then supplies a steady 85v AC at 3A, 400Hz to maintain the discharge.
This module could quite easily be depotted as the silicone material used is fairly soft & can be removed with a pointed tool.

 

Hi-Lo Bulb Assembly
Hi-Lo Bulb Assembly

Here is the bulb removed from it’s mount. Under the bulb itself is a solenoid, which tilts the bulb by a few degrees, presumably to provide dim/dip operation for a headlight. This functionality is superfluous to my requirements.

Bulb
Bulb

Closeup of the arc chamber of the bulb.

 

 

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Vivicam 5190

Front
Front

A 5 megapixel digital camera from Vivitar. Visible here is the lens, viewfinder & flash.

Back
Back

Rear of the unit showing the LCD & user control buttons.

Cover Removed
Cover Removed

Front frame removed showing some of the internals. Shutter assembly & lens in centre, battery compartment at left.

Rear Cover Removed
Rear Cover Removed

Rear frame removede, showing the LCD module & tactile switches.

LCD
LCD

LCD module removed from the PCB

Flash PCB
Flash PCB

Flash PCB removed. Transformer is fed with the 4.5v from the 3 AA cells & steps it up to ~300v DC for the flash capacitor. A pulse transformer energizes an electrode next to the Xenon flash tube with ~5kV to ionize the gas.

Main PCB
Main PCB

Main PCB removed. Internal flash ROM & RAM IC visible above the SD card socket. USB connector is at the top right, next to the piezo buzzer.

CPU
CPU

Main processor on reverse side of the PCB.

Image Sensor
Image Sensor

Closeup of the CMOS image sensor with the lens assembly removed.